I nodded in understanding, although I supposed he might not have seen me doing so in the dark.
We lay in silence, the subject of our mutual fear of disgusting each other still taking up space in the air around us. Crickets and frogs called out in their desperate frenzy of chirping and croaking, and I wondered how I could possibly sleep with all the ruckus, never mind the other discomforts and worries. A splash sounded somewhere beyond the trees, and for a moment I thought Joe might have caught the urge to swim around naked again. I still imagined him as a woodland creature, swimming down among the submerged grasses, hiding in the darkest recesses far below the water’s surface. Maybe he transformed into a fish when I wasn’t looking, like the prince in the Creole story. A sleek coho salmon, or even a swift and frightened minnow.
He scooted closer to me on the blanket—not in a bold and forward way, but in a slow and cautious manner, as though he was trying to come nearer for a smidgen of warmth without sounding like he was doing so.
“Good night, Hanalee,” he said, just a few inches away.
A tear leaked out of my right eye and dampened the blanket below my left cheek. I held my breath for a moment, forcing my shoulders not to shake, and then I answered, in as steady a voice as I could muster. “Good night.”
OREGON WOODS, CIRCA 1918.
CHAPTER 12
HOW UNWORTHY A THING YOU MAKE OF ME
IT TOOK A LONG WHILE TO FALL asleep in such a strange and exposed environment. Terrible dreams bothered what little slumber I could snatch, and at one point I woke up in the darkness, huddled against Joe’s stomach and chest with my hands balled between our two bodies. My teeth chattered, and I shivered and whimpered and burrowed against him, while he breathed in a steady rhythm beside me. The air on the forest floor felt as bitter cold as December, not at all like the beginning of July.
Joe tucked his arm around my back and pulled me close. He shivered, too, but his shirt heated my cheek and nose.
“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep.
“It’s freezing out here.”
With gentle movements, he scooted the two of us over to my side of the blanket, and then he lifted his arm and wrapped the other side of the covering around us. We had to snuggle close for the blanket to reach around my shoulders, and all I could think was The world must be mighty atrocious right now if cuddling up with Joe Adder in the middle of the woods seems my most desirable option.
I DREAMED OF DADDY OPENING UP THE FRONT DOOR to our house. I stood in our gleaming oak entry hall, upon the green and gold rug, and I gaped at the sight of my father pulling his hat off his head of short, tight curls. He reached out his right hand, smiled, and told me in his deep, honey tones, “There’s been a mistake, baby doll. I didn’t die after all.”
A sound awoke me—a crack of a twig or some other minor disturbance that jolted me out of the sweetness of the dream. I grabbed hold of a warm hand that rested near my chest and strove to slip back to the place in which my father walked in from the fields, his coveralls streaked in dirt and flecks of hay, everything smelling fresh and clean and earthy.
A twig cracked again.
“What the hell . . . ?” said a nearby voice that made my heart stop. Cigarette smoke wafted into my nostrils.
My eyes flew open, and I found Robbie and Gil Witten standing over us, gawking, their heads cocked, as though they were viewing a two-headed creature with wings and a beak. Cigarettes burned in their right hands. A bottle of a clear booze that must have been gin dangled from Gil’s meaty left fingers. Robbie held a wooden-handled pocketknife with an exposed blade that glinted in the morning sunlight.
I froze beneath Joe’s arm.
Robbie closed his mouth and flicked ash from the end of his cigarette toward our feet beneath the blanket. “Hey, jailbird Joe!” he called out.
Joe stirred beside me. He opened his eyes to the faces above us and bolted to a sitting position. “What’re you doing here?”
Robbie took a drag from the cigarette and puffed a white cloud of smoke in our direction. “That’s precisely what we were about to ask you.”
“We were just coming out here for breakfast”—Gil tapped the bottle of gin against his leg—“and heard someone snoring.”
“I had no idea,” said Robbie, “it would be Elston’s most-wanted criminal and sweet Hanalee Denney.”
Gil snickered and turned bright red. “I thought for sure Hanalee would be naked under that blanket.”
Robbie furrowed his thick eyebrows at me. “What are you doing out here with this ex-convict? I warned you, he’s depraved.”
“Some breakfast you’ve got there,” said Joe, nodding toward the gin. “Aren’t Klan members supposed to be opposed to bootlegging?”